The pie chart shows where Parkland receives its funding: approximately half coming from tuition and fees that students pay, a little over a third coming from local property taxes, 3 percent coming from other sources, and finally the last 8 percent coming from the state.
David Saveanu
Reporter
The Board of Trustees voted unanimously on Feb. 21 to not raise tuition at Parkland for the first time in 26 years.
The decision was made that Parkland, because of increases in tuition over the past several years, will be able to keep the tuition rate the same next year.
Chris Randles, Parkland’s Vice President of Administrative Services, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer, said that after a few years without steady state funding, Parkland is now in a better position, meaning that the college can afford to not raise tuition.
Randles said that the college hit a high point financially in 2012, after which the college’s savings “dipped over a several year period because of [a] lack of state funding and lack of enrollment.”
Since then, Parkland has seen its financial situation improve.
“Now we’ve had a couple of good years of state funding, so we just thought it was a good opportunity to be able to give you all, the students, the community, a break in terms of raising tuition, and still project a fairly balanced budget next year even if we don’t raise tuition,” Randles said.
State funding had dropped severely over the last couple of years, because of Illinois’ budget impasse. As a result, Parkland struggled financially. Parkland’s two other main sources of income are student tuition and local taxes.
“In an ideal situation, [students] would pay about a third in tuition, local government [which] is local taxes would pay about a third, and the state would pay a third,” Randles said. “Well obviously, the state isn’t paying their third, we can’t raise taxes, at least not easily, so the burden has fallen to [students] over the years.”
Raising taxes would be a significant challenge according to Randles, so instead the college has had to consistently increase tuition, shifting the burden onto students and their families.
At the trustee meeting the focus was on how tuition rates have gone up over the past 20 years. Aside from a couple of instances, tuition has been consistently increasing from $51 per credit hour, including a $3 fee. It has risen at an average rate of 6.27 percent.
One instance when the tuition was raised more was when the Student Union was built.
“In 2009, when we built the Student Union, we issued bonds and raised the student fee from $3 to $8. So that $5 extra is actually helping pay $10 million in bonds that are helping pay for the union building specifically,” Randles said.
This increase in the fees that came with tuition was the first in 18 fiscal years. Over the following nine years, fees and tuition were increased according to Randles. One of these increases was made to help the college pay for technology, something that has become more prominent in classes and common areas according to Randles.
“We raised the fees again $7 this year… as a technology fee. The state wasn’t funding us [and] we were falling behind in updating computer labs, infrastructure of technology, [and] bandwidth for WiFi,” Randles said.
“Nonetheless, that was a cost passed onto [students],” Randles said.
Since the burden has been shifted to students in recent years, to relieve some of the weight of growing costs, Randles said that a recommendation was made to the Board of Trustees to not raise tuition by Parkland’s administration.
In the future however, it is likely that tuition will have to be raised, as it has been in the past, to keep up with increased costs, projected fluctuations of enrollment, and a lack of sufficient governmental funding according to Randles.
“ The only way we can keep up with increased salaries, benefits, utilities, etc. was, unfortunately, to raise tuition, which is what we were doing,” Randles said.
Without an increase in tuition sometime in the next couple of years, the college will likely be looking at deficit in its budget.
“There’s some projections here that we discussed with the board…that starting next year, if we don’t raise tuition, we’d have a slight deficit of $479,000 which we can manage because we’re going to have a surplus this year, but if in the following fiscal years, we don’t raise tuition at all, and enrollment doesn’t go up, and the state doesn’t fund us more, it would be big deficits which we couldn’t afford to sustain very long,” Randles said.
The idea of not raising tuition has always been talked about, but the means weren’t there before this year.
“The Board of Trustees has been interested in quite some time to not raise tuition or raise it less than normal. They’re very aware. Many of them are parents and grandparents,” Randles said. “Staff and faculty, really everyone’s, concerned about what we charge for tuition. We want it to be fair and affordable.”
Parkland aims to keep its fund balance, a measure of the college’s financial resources, between 30 to 35 percent. This means that money for 30 to 35 percent of the expenses that keep Parkland running remain in the fund.
“We bottomed out in fiscal 2012, our fund balance hitting a low of 15 percent,” Randles said. “We dipped from our 35, which is the high end of our goal, to 15, in a mere four years.”
But after this severe decrease in the fund balance, the increases in tuition have helped the college bounce back.
“We expect [by] June 30 of 2018, that it will be back up close to 31 percent, which is […] healthier,” said Randles, acknowledging that it isn’t where the college once was, but it is in a more secure fiscal state.
Parkland’s state funding depends on a number of factors, including the types of classes that students are enrolled in.
“We get funded based on amount of instruction we provide, and in what category,” Randles said. “For example, health professions which can be nursing, dental hygiene, we get reimbursed more per credit hour than a baccalaureate class which is, say, a history class, and that in theory makes some sense. If you’re in history you’re probably in the traditional classroom. […] If you’re in nursing, [there are more] labs, sinks, more insurance, more things that can go wrong.”
Along with the different categories, the college is also funded on enrollment rates.
“We get funded on how many students we have and the amount of credit hours [students] take. The problem is the state hasn’t been funding the community college system,” Randles said.
According to Randles Parkland is receiving $4.4 million this year from the state and will possibly receive less next year. The money received this year is more than has been received in the past few years though.
Often times the state budget is unpredictable, as is the case now.
“The governor’s doing a budget, the legislature [has] not come to any agreement, and we don’t even know if they will come to an agreement. It’s possible we won’t even be having a budget when the year starts,” Randles said.
Randles said that the cost of business for the college has been rising, but since the state funding has not kept up with it and has decreased, the college has been trying to make due with less money.
“If they give you $6.6 million in 2012, whether you’re getting $2 million or $4 million, the cost of everything’s gone up in 6 year; how are you supposed to manage with two to four million less, five years later?” Randles said.
Parkland has done things to try to control expenses and keep costs low.
“We’ve also done cuts…we’re down 70 full time employees from several years ago, which is across all categories,” Randles said.
Parkland, in efforts to bounce back, has changed the insurance plans of its employees to a higher deductible plan. Along with this, Parkland began charging students the credit card fee that comes with paying for tuition with a credit card.
In terms of energy consumption and utilities, Parkland has also managed to keep costs fairly low.
“Several buildings have been newly installed over the years, including the U-wing, and the T-building, yet the utilities haven’t increased much,” Randles said.
Randles explained the main task of the college throughout all this is to make sure students’ quality of education does not decrease, while Parkland cuts back on expenses.
“We need to provide [students] with quality instructors in the class, quality facilities which include the classrooms, having computers and projectors, obviously a safe environment, a clean environment, to study in,” Randles said.
